The Polish miracle pretty much ended in 1974 and the old suspicion of Polish 'bubble' returned. With a slight change – a solid team, but without future. Some players reached their peak in 1974 and were either getting too old, or not improving. Another factor was players allowed to play abroad – so far the official end of their national team career. And, as it was well known in 1974, there was hardly enough talent to replace the great generation. The team remained basically the same – except for the gaps opened by departing players. Jacek Gmoch, the assistant coach of wonderful 'Druzina Polska' also left – a very unusual departure too: he went to USA to pursue scientific academic career. In 1976 Kazimierz Gorski left and went to coach in Greece. Slowly, key pieces of the national team were falling and the team was becoming what traditionally was known to be: not bad, not great, good enough to fight back and may be disrupt somebody else's plans, but nothing else. Gorski was replaced by Jacek Gmoch in 1976 – quite a desperate move, given the reasons for which Gmoch quit football less than two years ago. On the other hand, he was to ensure continuity – familiar with the players, familiar with and very likely entirely sharing Gorski's vision of football, Gmoch was perfect choice. But continuity has nothing to do with radical change and here objective problems painfully emerged: Gadocha was gone abroad, so was Domarski. The attacking line became the biggest problem – it was practically reduced to Szarmach and Lato. Lesser, yet similar problems, were in evidence in the other lines as well. Not a single great new player emerged meantime and the group of the key national team players shrunk. Gmoch, however, managed to qualify Poland to the 1978 finals. His team was no longer exciting one, but still played energetic attacking football.

At the time, the biggest asset of Gmoch was his age – not even 40 years old, he had plenty of experience, but more importantly he was young enough to be open minded to new developments in the game. At least so it looked like from aside – in reality, whatever ideas Gmoch had was immaterial. He simply had very small pool of quality players. This limitation produced a revolution of different kind: Vlodzimierz Lubanski was recalled. For the first time foreign based professional player was included in the national team of Poland – and it was only the second professional player to appear in Communist national team (except Yugoslavia) so far. A new gate was opened by that, but it was not so much brave revolt against the system, but an act of desperation: Lubanski deserved to be called both because he was in excellent form and because he contributed so much to Polish football, yet, his injury left him out of the glorious 1974 squad. But neither gratitude, nor current form would include him again in 'Druzina Polska', if there were local strikers of similar class at hand. Since Lubanski was a key member of the original team made by Gorski, at the end Gmoch depended largely on the old, familiar names: 9 players from the 1974 squad were selected. Ten, if Lubanski is counted. Same team... only with shorter hairs for some reason. The wild look of 1974 Tomaszewski, Gorgon, Lato was gone – as if to hint that their wild free football was also gone.



1

GK

Jan Tomaszewski

9 January 1948 (aged 30)



ŁKS Łódź

2

FW

Włodzimierz Mazur

18 April 1954 (aged 24)



Zagłębie Sosnowiec

3

DF

Henryk Maculewicz

24 April 1950 (aged 28)



Wisła Kraków

4

DF

Antoni Szymanowski

13 January 1951 (aged 27)



Wisła Kraków

5

MF

Adam Nawałka

23 October 1957 (aged 20)



Wisła Kraków

6

DF

Jerzy Gorgoń

18 July 1949 (aged 28)



Górnik Zabrze

7

FW

Andrzej Iwan

10 November 1959 (aged 18)



Wisła Kraków

8

MF

Henryk Kasperczak

10 July 1946 (aged 31)



Stal Mielec

9

DF

Władysław Żmuda

6 June 1954 (aged 23)



Śląsk Wrocław

10

DF

Wojciech Rudy

24 October 1952 (aged 25)



Zagłębie Sosnowiec

11

MF

Bohdan Masztaler

19 September 1949 (aged 28)



ŁKS Łódź

12

MF

Kazimierz Deyna

23 October 1947 (aged 30)



Legia Warszawa

13

DF

Janusz Kupcewicz

9 December 1955 (aged 22)



Arka Gdynia

14

DF

Mirosław Justek

23 September 1948 (aged 29)



Lech Poznań

15

MF

Marek Kusto

29 April 1954 (aged 24)



Legia Warszawa

16

FW

Grzegorz Lato

8 April 1950 (aged 28)



Stal Mielec

17

FW

Andrzej Szarmach

3 October 1950 (aged 27)



Stal Mielec

18

MF

Zbigniew Boniek

3 March 1956 (aged 22)



Widzew Łódź

19

FW

Włodzimierz Lubański

28 February 1947 (aged 31)



KSC Lokeren

20

DF

Roman Wójcicki

8 January 1958 (aged 20)



Odra Opole

21

GK

Zygmunt Kukla

21 January 1948 (aged 30)



Stal Mielec

22

GK

Zdzisław Kostrzewa

26 October 1955 (aged 22)



Zagłębie Sosnowiec

Not a team expected to match the success of 1974, but still following the original concept. The core was familiar – Tomaszewski between the goalposts, Gorgon, Szymanowski, and Zmuda in defense, Kasperczak and Deyna in midfield, Lato and Szarmach in attack. The rest were support players... There were detectable problems – Tomaszewski was not in great form. Yet, he was the top Polish goalkeeper by far, practically without competition. His back-ups from 1974 were still active, but none of them was needed for national team duty. For a while another keeper – Mowlik – was tried, but he was selected for the World Cup team. Kukla was stable for years, but rarely called – practically, he became national team player in 1977-78, already 30 years old. Three players competed for two spots in the middle of defense: Szymanowski, Gorgon, and the young and increasingly playing better and better Zmuda. Unless somebody was moved to the flanks – Szymanowski the only really capable of changing position – one defender was to sit on the bench, but in the same time there were no really strong candidates for left and right full backs. Deyna was getting old and a bit over the hill, but he and Kasperczak were still solid. However, a third midfielder of similar class was nowhere to be found. And the very limited pool of strikers was huge problem for a team conceptually depending on speedy attacking football – Lubanski and Szarmach were both centre-forwards. Lato had no competition on the right wing, but there was nobody on the left side since Gadocha left to play abroad. At the end, the more versatile Szarmach was moved on the left wing – the only possible solution. The rest of the team was filled up by players like Masztaler, Maculewicz, Rudy – they were not new players at all, called now and then to the national team even before 1974, but never really convincing and becoming regulars. There were other quite clearly second stringers for years, like Justek, making the numbers more or less thanks to momentary good form. There was the enigmatic midfielder Marek Kusto – at 24, he was coming to his second World Cup as a reserve. Somehow he never became a real starter, played occasionally for years, and managed to appear on three World Cup finals in total, yet, playing little or not at all, just making the numbers. Since most of the 1974 team were still relatively young and playing in Poland, some choices looked strange – apparently neither the old heroes, nor the second stringers were better, but rather equal and choice depended on momentary form. Nobody developed into solid star, like Kasperczak did. Lastly, promising youngsters completed the squad – nothing wrong with that, and Gorski did the same in 1974 too – but now desperation was seemingly the driving force. Nawalka, Kupcewicz, and Wojcicki were promising, no doubt about it, but there inclusion was seemingly motivated by the lack of solid regulars at their positions – all things more or less equal, Gmoch seemingly gambled with younger talent. If not better, at least no worse than others, and may be younger players would be hungrier. Finally, Boniek and Iwan – both showed talent and were seen as future stars, but not quite ready for the national team. Iwan was brought straight from the Polish Under-20 Junior team. Neither was expected to play – both Boniek and Iwan were mostly brought to make the numbers and just in case. And in case of some starter's misfortune, neither replacement was expected to be at the same level. There was little discussion about Boniek and Iwan – they were included prematurely, only because there was nobody else, but neither was expected to play. May be in 3-4 years, but not now.

At the end, the interesting trivia was the numbers of the players – in 1974 the team was given numbers by their posts, from goalkeepers to strikers. Not in 1978 – instead, some players clearly chose their own numbers. Thus, some kept their numbers from 1974 – Gorgon, Zmuda, Deyna, Lato, Szymanowski. Others changed numbers – Tomaszewski was no longer playing with number 2, but with traditional goalie's number 1. Kasperczak and Kusto also changed numbers. But Lubanski? Was he given a choice? It is hard to tell – the Polish revered superstar used either 9 or 10, yet other players – much younger than him, and in the case of Rudy – hardly famous – got these numbers. Lubanski got number 19, which looked like a reserve number. Strange.

Poland was expected to qualify to the second stage – the group was easy, the team was solid and experienced enough to overcome Mexico and Tunisia. Second place – the team was no longer capable of surprise performances and it was no match of the Germans. Advancing a bit, thanks to the lucky draw, and then – sure elimination in the second stage. The exciting bronze medalists of 1974 were just run of the mill by now, nobody considered them favourites, nobody expected miracles from the Poles.